My 10 Least Favorite Video Games of All Time(10-6)
So, as you may or may not know I play a lot of video games and have for quite some time. And not all of them are good. Most are, because I don't tend to play bad games out of curiosity like I do for animation. If I come across a bad game, it's usually because I was duped in some way shape or form. I play games to have fun and tend to use resources that pull me in helpful directions. Granted, sometimes I get disappointed by what I find, but it's never usually bad enough for me to turn the console off like thirty minutes after starting it. I know to avoid licensed games and there are none here (although the ones I grew up with were actually pretty damn good, like Goof Troop for the SNES). If anything, I'd expect a lot of bad sequels on this list, because that's where the disappointment hits the hardest. Number 10: Animal Crossing – Wild World (Nintendo DS) Alright, I've stated that I had a lot of distate for this game (possibly more so than some of the entries further down the list), but at least it's functional. It tried to be Animal Crossing, but on a portable device... and that required it be watered down in every single way. Most of the defenders of this game thought that it was better than the original and City Folk, simply because it was on a handheld. Whether or not that's true, New Leaf's entry to the franchise makes that argument moot. One of my bigger problems was how small Wild World's village was. It almost felt like a prison, which I guess is better than constantly getting lost like you did in the first game (at least in the beginning). In fact, this game is so prison-esque, that it inspired a creepy pasta that gives Ben Drowned a run for its money. The game did add a few things, like scorpions and tarantulas. Which I hate running into in the dead of the night when I tried playing this game, winding down to go to bed. They added horse mackarel, fish that are twice as common as sea bass, but even less valuable. It added flower breeding, which REALLY encouraged time travel, but if the game's clock got desynced even slightly (even by accident; screw you daylight savings) your game was essentially irreparably damaged. All four players had to live in the same house, so if you're not in a very wealthy family, your siblings would be able to take all of your stuff and sell it. Then there are hairstyles, which you could only access after you've had someone else buy a DS and buy something in your town. For a sequel, they sure took a lot of things out: like the NES games, and I think many pieces of furniture. Why take out the item codes? I loved using those to get the items I wanted and not having to wait forever to get specific sets. Also, Tom Nook will have the same stock on the same day in this game, no matter how many times you go back to this day. However, the most grueling removal in this game was holidays/events. That change absolutely baffled me. Maybe they didn't want it so you could only get one copy of a particular item, forever, but without these major holidays, the year seems just dull, boring and repetitive. It's almost an insight to why we have so many celebrations in real life. And fishing tourneys wear out their welcome before you know it. I get that if this was your first Animal Crossing game, then you're going to have a lot of nostalgic memories with it because that's the kind of game Animal Crossing is: a game that creates memories. I created mine in the first one, and this one kind of watered them down. Number 9: Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (PlayStation) '''Growing up, I was into Yu-Gi-Oh and had three different video games for it. This one, Dark Duel Stories on the Game Boy Color, and Falsebound Kingdom for the GameCube. Would you believe that the one on the Game Boy Color was the best of the three? I can't be too hard on Falsebound Kingdom. As a spin-off, it's pretty decent; however, being the only Yu-Gi-Oh game for the Gamecube, it should have been a main series game. But it knew what it wanted to do and managed to achieve it. And then there's this game. Forbidden Memories was the first Yu-Gi-Oh game released in America, but it wasn't the first one ever made. If it was the first one ever made, I could cut it some slack. It doesn't follow the rules of the game correctly. First of all, there are no effect monsters (something that the game boy color game managed to program in). You don't need to tribute monsters, but you can only play one card per turn. So if you play a spell card or a trap card, you cannot play another monster. So if you were to use Dark Hole (which removes ALL cards on the field, not just monsters in this game) then you leave yourself open for attack. One of the mechanics in the game is that each of the cards have two guardian stars you can select between. It'll either lower your monster's attack and defense by 500 points if your opponent has a guardian star that you're weak to, raise them each by 500 points if your opponent has a guardian star that you're weak to, or it'll do nothing at all. These guardian stars contain all of the planets (except earth), the moon, the sun, and pluto, so you have to memorize what does what. And choosing your card's guardian star is pretty much the only strategy in this game. You have to beat down your opponent. The best you can hope for through spell cards are field cards or rageki (which I recommend you using two memory cards to get three of them right off the bat). Then there's the fusions, which turns the game into trial and error. You can combine two cards in your hand (or one in your hand and one on the field) to create a more powerful monster, and once again, you've got to memorize this. There's not really strategy here, since there are only a few cards you can fuse for (and you'll be doing it for the twin-headed thunder dragon 90% of the time), and without effects it's blatant which cards are better than one another. Then there's the RPG aspect of this game. It's the most grind-happy thing I've ever played (and I've BEATEN the original Dragon Warrior on NES). When you beat an opponent you get up to 5 star chips and a card. The card you get is practically random. Every so often you'll get a really good card, but it won't be (unless you're battling the Forest Mage for some reason) so hope it's fusion material for the Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon. The only other way to get cards (besides trading) is to input a card code and pay with star chips. Some cards can go up to, I'm not kidding here, 999999 star chips. And you can only get 5 star chips per duel, if you do it flawlessly. Let's do the math, 999999 divided by 5 equals about 200,000 duels. Let's take it a step further, assuming that you can win one duel per minute (you can't), that means you need 3,333 consecutive hours of perfect duels (without a bathroom break) or 139 straight DAYS, just to get Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Or Time Wizard, a weak card that has NO EFFECT in this version. This would be bearable if you could sell the cards you don't want, but you can't do that, even at the card shop (which you can't use to buy cards). You fail against even a random NPC that has nothing to do with the story, and you game over. There's only one time where you don't get a game over if you lose. The game doesn't tell you this, but it's the only duel where you actually have to lose. The enemy AI is ruthless and will make the most powerful monsters it can. And yes, some of them do have millenium item powers. Pegasus knows what cards you've placed face down. He also has four rageki's for some god-forsaken reason. The end of the game has a boss rush where you can't save between battles, and I hate that, even in games that I like. It's probably the worst Yu-Gi-Oh game ever made, and it's only this low because that's all I had at the time and did manage to squeeze some enjoyment out of it. If there's anything redeemable in this game, it's its kickass soundtrack. It's one of the best on the PlayStation 1, and I'm not joking. The sound track makes you feel like you're playing an actual game sometime and not a grind fest. '''Number 8: Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit (PC) This is probably going to be my most controversial pick on this list, but I do not get the appeal of this game at all. It's a game that's 90% story... that rushes the story. Yes, I know that it was rushed for release, but that's no excuse to sacrifice the most important aspect of your game. I find Indigo Prophecy's failings very interesting. I'm not kidding, it would be a good excerise to take apart the failings of the story of this game, and the failings of Heavy Rain. That game has its problems too, but this one has bigger problems. I don't find David Cage to be that good of a director. I mean, his cinematography is really good in things like Heavy Rain and he can get good actors and actually found a use for motion capture, but when it comes to storytelling, it's horrible. Honestly, if these games were movies like they pretend to be, they'd probably be huge bombs and laughed at, or at least would be on par with those cheesy action movies. Heavy Rain is saddled with so many plot holes, you literally cannot enjoy it twice. Beyond Two Souls uses non-linear storytelling the exact wrong way, and Indigo Prophecy just completely gives up about halfway through. Let's talk about Indigo Prophecy, and yes I'm going to spoil it. The game play splits between two characters: Lucas, a man who has inadvertently committed a crime and a couple of police officers trying to track him down. This leaves it up to the player to figure out if they want the police officers to track Lucas down, or if they want him to get away. The three people you play as have conflicted goals, leaving you never sure on what to do. This works in Heavy Rain because most of the characters have the same goal, or at least seem to. The game never tells me if I want Carla and Tyler to find the clues to go after Lucas, but Lucas is portrayed very sympathetically—being possessed into killing someone. Let's talk about that. Throughout the game, the city gets colder and colder to temperatures that would kill anyone in the real world. Then again, Heavy Rain had one town getting more rain in three days than Hawaii gets in a year. This is for reasons. There's an ancient Mayan conspiracy who wants to use an indigo child—a mute little girl who is the incarnation of the internet at some point. Oh, and Lucas ends up jumping off a roller coaster, killing himself, and still being alive for some reason. This game, and probably the ending of Condemned 2, is probably why I'm adverse to the whole ancient conspiracy kind of idea. (The final nail in the coffin for that was actually Beyond Good & Evil, which used conspiracy in the right way and is one of my favorite games ever, but that's a talk for another day). This conspiracy turned what was a story about a man trying to prove his innocence to ancient Mayans creating a new ice age with... something that wasn't explained very well. There are other storytelling missteps too. Tyler, and established character leaves in the final third of the story (without dying). That's almost as bad as Elf Bowling adding a new one at the same point. It's like if Neil left the story halfway through To the Moon. Lucas becomes a zombie because he jumped off of a roller coaster because hurr de durr ancient conspiracy, and yet Carla still has sex with him. It's just a ridiculous mess of a story, in a game that's supposedly defined by its story. Seriously though, take an honest look at what it did wrong. You could learn a lot about what not to do from it. Number 7: Facade (PC) It's hard for me to pick on a free game as one of my least favorites ever, and one that doesn't advertise itself as a game, rather an "interactive drama" but I'm counting it. There are several endings that you need to meet prerequesites to get, and a lose condition (saying "melons"). I'll be honest though, I'm in love with this concept and the idea of where the technology used here might go. To tell you the truth, the first time I played Facade, it actually triggered my social anxiety. No joke. If the technology behind this game weren't in obvious alpha I could see someone running with this technology to help people deal with social issues, kind of like how First Person Shooters can actually help people deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There's a lot of potential here, but none of it is utilized. The game is comprised of two horrible people arguing with each other, while you just stand there trying to get the conversation somewhere interesting. The story is very scripted out and as you continue along, these people feel less and less like people and just talking points that get angry when you mention melons. Because this game is focusing so hard on the story it completely neglects.... everything else. The music is probably public domain and the art direction is bad. The character models are ugly and there are white boarders around every object, like the creators took them straight from google images or anything. If someone could code a game that did what this game advertised—you being able to say anything and the game's people responding it could do wonders. Like I said, the potential to cure social anxiety is here, or just helping normal people increase their interpersonal skills, in a safe, controlled environment. It definitely tries to use its potential, it just falls so incredibly short. Number 6: ActRaiser II (SNES) Quinet, why would you do this? You're one of my favorite developers of all time. You made one of my favorite video games of all time, Terranigma. Terranigma is one of the most perfect games ever constructed. And the rest of the Gaia trilogy isn't bad either. You also made ActRaiser. For how early in the SNES's lifespan this game was, it was ingenious. You were essentially getting two games for the price of one. You'd get an action platformer, similar to Castlevania and a city builder similar to SimCity. While either of those on their own would have been overshadowed by their contemporaries, putting these two separate genres created an outstanding classic. It managed to have strong themes of bringing a dead world back to life, and the city simulation parts were probably my favorite part of the game as a kid. Maybe because the action part of the game was a little too hard for me then (it's relatively easy now). Then comes along ActRaiser 2. This game completely got rid of the city simulation aspect... for some reason. This game ramped up the difficulty of the action aspect... for some reason. The action aspect is no longer balanced, but hey you've got the ability to fly now. Whoopdidoo. The game looks and sounds good, but it's not fun to play. The game feels a lot like a watered down Castlevania IV, but it's far too difficult to be enjoyable. It was the SNES time when we were getting out of "this game must be the hardest thing you've ever played if it's going to be enjoyable" phase. All of your enemies move faster than you, which is not something you want in a SNES action platformer. While the game looks and sounds good, there isn't anything as memorable as say, Fillmore's Act I stage. And there are no memorable parts of the story, like people inventing music for a man who died in the desert. I just couldn't find it in me to plow through this game and turned it off fairly quickly. With the original ActRaiser, even in moments I didn't like, there was always something to keep me pushing on. There was replay value with making each of the cities better than I did last time (even though there is an optimal way to build them). I've played ActRaiser about a dozen times. This one... I probably haven't even clocked in two hours, I just hated it that much. Why would I play this when I could play Castlevania IV instead? This is probably one of the most disappointing sequels of all time for me. Category:Top Tens